Wegmans, the Rochester-based supermarket known for its fresh produce, reasonable prices, and happy employees, is moving to Brooklyn. And people are thrilled. News of the new store, which will open in 2017, and, in line with Wegmans’ strategy, will be enormous, has fired off all sorts of excitement.

But it has also raised questions, particularly from those unfamiliar with the brand and its allure. What is the deal with Wegmans? Why do people who know it seem to love it so? And is it really this grocery oasis in what increasingly feels like a desert of mediocre or at least interchangeable supermarket options?

I poked around a bit, because I was one of those people who knew little about the chain and why it’s so beloved. And you know what? I am now convinced. Wegmans really does seem to be a step ahead of, well, everyone else in the business. There are good reasons why year after year, Consumer Reports rates it as the number one grocery store in the country. Really good reasons.

We got a new Wegmans in my neck of the woods (Prince Georges County, Maryland) back in 2010.

I’ve been a regular Wegmans shopper ever since. I use to do my grocery shopping at Giant Food before Wegmans came along. I still go to Giant once in a while but when I go there I’m reminded of why I love Wegmans better. I’m always stuck in a very long line at Giant. They only have 2 lines open if you’re not in the express lane. At Wegmans there are plenty of non-express lines available. My wait isn’t as long as it is in Giant.

The Wegmans in my neighborhood is huge. Call me crazy but I love large size grocery stores. It’s like you’re going on a sight-seeing tour. I know, I’m strange 😉

Then there is the seafood section. Love it. There fish isn’t cheap but it’s good. There’s the weight gaining bakery area. You can gain a few pounds just by looking at all the muffins, cupcakes, cookies, cakes, pies, etc.

There’s also the hot food bars including Indian food, Chinese food, all kinds of chicken wings and a vegetarian hot bar.

I find the prices at Wegmans a little cheaper than Giant and much cheaper than Safeway. Safeway is more expensive than Giant. Overall I just love shopping at Wegmans. Especially on Monday mornings. Hardly anyone in there so it’s like you have the store to yourself. I find it too crowded on Sunday afternoon. It’s a madhouse during that time.

Hope the folks in Brooklyn enjoy their new Wegmans when it opens in a couple of years. Shopping at Wegmans is definitely an adventure.

The new Wegmans at the Woodmore Towne Centre in Glenarden/Lanham/Largo/Mitchellville/Upper Marlboro (did I forget one?) finally opened yesterday morning.

I wasn’t one of the 1,500 people who were there by the 7:00am opening. I got there around 9:15am. Getting there wasn’t a problem. The police were directing traffic at the intersection of St. Joseph’s Drive and Route 202 (Landover Road). But once you got into the shopping center there were plenty of cars and the Wegmans parking lot is huge. Thankfully they had the police and other folks directing traffic within the shopping center as well. While driving I noticed that the Costco gas station was open. Costco opens tomorrow.

The first chore was trying to find a parking space. After driving around I finally found one. The second chore was trying to find a big shopping cart cause I had some serious grocery shopping to do 🙂 They had several types of shopping carts and the one I was looking for was difficult to find. That’s how busy they were. I finally followed an employee who was putting a cart back.

I usually do my grocery shopping at Giant on Saturdays but since Wegmans was opening I decided to wait until yesterday. Once I got in, OMG I was in awe. Wegmans is huge. And of course it was so crowded you really had to maneuver your shopping cart around so you wouldn’t run into other shoppers. I was a very patient person since I got there early and took my time getting around the store. I tried to go down as many aisles as I could but that was somewhat difficult due to the crowds. I did notice that the produce area was one of the most crowded. But I made my way through so I could buy my greens 😉 They had regular and organic greens.

The Food Bar areas were even more crowded than the grocery area. The Food Bar areas include the Asian Bar, Vegetarian Bar, Fresh Food Bar, Veggie Bar, places that sell pizza, subs, sushi and coffee, the prepared food area and the Market Café. I did try out the Asian food bar and the food was very good.

There were quite a number of grocery items I bought that were cheaper than the prices at Giant. Uh oh!!! I was glad to see that they had a variety of brands including name brands and Wegmans brand. Overall I really enjoyed my shopping adventure even if it was extremely crowded. I was there for over an hour. I’m hoping that next time I go there which will probably be this Saturday it won’t be as crowded as opening day. That way I can really take my time, go down every single aisle and check out the areas that I missed out on yesterday including the Seafood area. I’m gonna try my best to stay away from the bakery area but that might be a difficult task 😉

I opened up my Washington Post this morning and saw a flyer for the grand opening of the Woodmore Towne Centre at Glenarden. The flyer mentioned the grand opening on Friday October 22, 2010. Besides Wegmans, Costco, Best Buy and Petco there will also be a Sleepy’s, Hour Eyes, Noodles and Company, PNC, Subway, T-Mobile and many others. J.C. Penney is scheduled to open in the Spring of 2011. This ad was also on the back page of today’s Washington Post Express newspaper.

I also checked out the Petrie Ross Ventures website where you can see a site map of the new shopping center. Check it out here. You need Adobe Acrobat to see the site map. Just go to Detailed Information in the right column, scroll down and you will see Complete Media Package. Click on the link and you’ll see a sixteen page marketing package including the site map. I enlarged it to about 400% so I could read the names of some of the stores and restaurants since the lettering is very small for some of the retail stores. There are alot of nameless restaurant spots. Some of the eating establishments listed include Sam Louie (a pizzeria), Noodles & Company (I love that place), Irie Cafe, a Vietnamese restaurant and Subway. Other stores listed include Beauty Mart, Party City, Woodmore Wine Store, Super Spa and Nails, Old Navy, Centre Cleaners, Capri (never heard of this place), Ultimo (never heard of this place) and plenty of other nameless retail spots. There’s also a police/security area (thank goodness) and several banks. And lets not forget that there is plenty of parking.

On the bottom left of the site map under site data I saw Fitness mentioned that’s over 45,000 square feet (almost the same size as Best Buy). I’m wondering if a fitness center like Bally’s or some other fitness place will be there.

Woodmore Towne Centre looks like what many folks thought The Boulevard was gonna be. A really nice shopping center. Well we all know how The Boulevard turned out. The riff raff took over that shopping center. The Boulevard is located next to the Largo Town Center metro which many folks say is part of the problem. Woodmore Towne Centre is located a few miles from the Largo Town Center metro. That would be one serious walk on Lottsford Road, Route 202 and then St. Josephs Drive. Hopefully the riff raff will stay put at The Boulevard and Woodmore Towne Centre will be a nice, safe shopping center for the rest of us.

Last Saturday I decided to drive over to Woodmore Towne Centre to see what’s going on. I read that the new Best Buy is open. That’s the only store that’s open right now. When I got over to the Woodmore Towne Centre it looked like construction city. They’re still doing alot of work over there. I did see that there’s gonna be a Petco store there. Other than that there’s not much driving around you could do. They’ve got construction workers blocking most of the driving area with the exception of getting into the Best Buy parking lot.

I did go into the Best Buy and looked around. It’s nice, spacious and it’s huge. I also bought a new pair of ear plugs for my mp3 player since my old pair died on me last Friday.

I saw a one page ad in the Prince Georges Gazette that the new Costco will be opening on Tuesday October 26. Two days after the Wegmans grand opening which takes place next Sunday October 24.

Speaking of Wegmans I received this flyer in the mail.

I received my shoppers club card in the mail a few weeks ago. I applied as soon as I saw the first Wegmans ad in the back of the Washington Post Sunday Arts section last month. Check out the Wegmans Woodmore Grand Opening page at the Wegmans website here.

And there’s more news. According to the site Citybizlist, the grand opening of the Woodmore Towne Centre is Friday, October 22.

Petrie Ross Ventures will host “Leading the Way” on October 22 at the new Woodmore Towne Centre. The event will mark the Grand Opening of Prince George’s County’s first Wegmans and support The Prince George’s Community Foundation and Hospice of the Chesapeake.

The Centre is located just off I-495 and Landover Road,/Rte. 202 and is situated on 245 acres. The project will include 800,000 square feet of retail space, 1 million square feet of office space, two hotels, and 1,100 residential units. The retail complex will be anchored by a 140,000 square foot Wegmans grocery store – the county’s first – as well as a 148,663 square foot Costco and a 96,446 square foot JC Penney. Best Buy and Petco are also tenants at the new center.

While reading my Sunday paper (yes I still read the print edition) I noticed on the back page of the Arts & Style section that the new Wegmans has a huge full page advertisement.

The advertisement mentions that there are five more weeks until the grand opening on October 24. There’s also a link to a page about the grand opening containing several videos including a welcome to Wegmans video from the Wegmans Woodmore manager Ayana Douglas and a contest you can enter to win a $25 gift card. You can also sign up to receive the free shoppers card.

Seeing the address had me wondering? Since when did that area off Route 202 become Lanham 😉

The original opening date was Sunday, October 10 but Washington Redskins traffic is priority around here. FedEx Field is about a mile or two down the Beltway on the opposite side of Wegmans. Can you imagine being stuck in traffic for a Redskins game and a Wegmans grand opening on a Sunday? That wouldn’t be fun.

As Wegmans prepares to open in Landover in October, the upscale grocery chain faces the challenge of breaking into a new market historically dominated by the likes of Giant Food and Safeway.

The 130,000-square-foot store, including a café with seating for more than 300, will be the anchor of the 705,227-square-foot Woodmore Towne Center, which is being developed by Petrie Ross Ventures of Annapolis. The center also is expected to include a Costco, Best Buy, J.C. Penney and Timothy Dean’s Prime Steakhouse.

This will be the second Wegmans in the state, following one that opened five years ago in Hunt Valley. Others are expected soon in Frederick and Montgomery County.

The Hunt Valley store’s sales totaled $80.90 million in fiscal 2010, according to a study by Food World, a trade publication in Columbia, down from $81.70 million in 2009.

More than 5,000 people have applied for jobs at Wegmans, which began hiring in April and plans to employ 650, said Ayana Douglas, Landover store manager. About half of the current hires are from the area, while the others were brought in by Wegmans. The Rochester, N.Y., company plans to spend $1.5 million on six-month training courses for its workers.

Wegmans will be joining Giant, Safeway, Shoppers and Food Lion when it comes to grocery stores in the Largo/Mitchellville/Upper Marlboro area. Right now I do most of my grocery shopping at Giant and I will be adding Wegmans to my grocery shopping trips.

LANHAM, MD – With the Wegmans Food Markets signature clock tower now visible east of Exit 17A on the Capitol Beltway, the Rochester-based supermarket chain is seeking full-time employees to staff the new store, now under construction at the Woodmore Towne Centre at Glenarden. Area residents are invited to take advantage of a streamlined on-line job application process at http://www.wegmans.com. Click on “Careers” to find the link for Woodmore.

“We’re looking for all kinds of people,” says Ayana Douglas, store manager of the new Wegmans Woodmore. “Experience in the grocery business isn’t the most important thing. If applicants bring a passion for food and for people, we’ll provide the training needed for success.”

The new 135,000 square-foot supermarket will open in October 2010 and will employ about 600 people, 550 of whom will be hired locally. Full-time jobs available now include customer service, entry-level management, cashier, pharmacy and a wide range of culinary positions. Hiring for part-time jobs will begin in July 2010.

Career information sessions detailing employment opportunities will be held at the store’s hiring office throughout the month of February. Applicants may call 1-877-WEGMANS (press Option 2) or 301-636-6347, Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m., to speak with a representative.

“One of the things I love most about working for Wegmans is the hands-on education and career possibilities it has afforded me,” says Douglas, a 14-year Wegmans’ veteran who has managed various store locations since 2001. “Whether you’re looking to build a career or just have a solid job, this is one great place to work.”

Check out the Welcome to Wegmans page which features the manager of the Woodmore store, Ayana Douglas. The new Wegmans is slated to open in October 2010.

In 2006 the Rochester, N.Y.-based supermarket chain announced plans to build a store at the Woodmore Towne Centre at Glenarden. It is slated to open in the fourth quarter of 2010.

Wegmans signed a 4,673-square-foot lease at the 122,000-square-foot office and warehouse building, which is 88 percent leased.

The space will function as an employment office, so that when the company starts to hire for the store those prospects would come in for interviews. Some training will also be held there before the store opens.